


Bed at Dawn

by EeveebethFejvu



Category: Dishonored (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Vampire, Children of the Nightsider, Gen, Vampire AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-31
Updated: 2014-10-31
Packaged: 2018-02-23 11:35:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,265
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2546099
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EeveebethFejvu/pseuds/EeveebethFejvu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first time he saw the coffin, Corvo hadn’t known whether to take offense, laugh, or thank his new patrons. </p><p>Written for Tumblr's Dishonored Halloween 2014.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bed at Dawn

**Author's Note:**

> Based on the “Children of the Nightsider” 'verse by MiskatonicDoctor and myself. 
> 
> Headcanons for this vampire AU can be read [here](http://eeveebethfejvu.tumblr.com/post/101350835891/children-of-the-nightsider-headcanons-for-a).

Corvo slipped into his chambers at the Hound Pits just as the rim of the sun began to peek over the Wrenhaven.

He leaned back against the edge of the desk for a moment to rest, smearing a heavy layer of dust across the back of his dark blue coat. Not that it wasn’t already spattered with dry, rust-colored splotches in a variety of places, along with brownish stains from the muck filling Dunwall’s sewer tunnels. He sighed wearily. 

After a few minutes, he was finally able to heave himself up and drag the coat off, along with his weapons, bone charms, belts, vest, and dress shirt, tumbling them into a rough bundle before tossing them carelessly on the desk. He lined his boots up beside the doorway, his trousers and socks following the rest of his clothes, and picked his way across the creaking floorboards in bare feet, clad only in his undershirt and knickers.

Ignoring the fresh vial of blood-red elixir on the side table, Corvo stared down exhaustedly at the bed his fellow Loyalists had supplied for his use. 

Or, rather, the coffin. 

The first time he had seen it, Corvo hadn’t known whether to take offense, laugh, or thank his new patrons. It was a simple rectangular affair made of unpainted Driscol pine, worn and weathered like everything at the Hound Pits, sitting drably on the bare floorboards. While vampires like himself did not need to sleep in a coffin, particularly one lined with the earth of their homeland (as the rumors continued to perpetuate), he admittedly found sleeping in such close confines immensely soothing. To even have a coffin as a sleeping option once more after six months in a drafty Coldridge cell was a great relief.

Corvo lifted the lid, barely even flinching now at the loud creak of the tarnished hinges. It was a good thing he didn’t need Karnacan soil, he thought; it would have been a bitch to import even without the current blockade.

Carefully, Corvo stepped into the box and lowered himself into a sitting position, kicking at the blankets in a hopeless attempt to force out the uncomfortable lumps. Whoever it was that had fixed up the coffin – Samuel or Lydia, probably – had done their very best to pad the box sufficiently with pillows and blankets, but it didn’t quite make up for the lack of mattress. Corvo slowly laid down in the jumble of scratchy wool, threadbare linen, and faded cushions and pulled the lid down until it thunked closed above him, completely shutting out the pale morning light.

The inside of the coffin was stuffy and, to his sensitive nose, reeked strongly of human bodily fluids and the musky odor of wolfhounds. It told Corvo all he needed to know about where his bedding had come from. He sighed once more and closed his eyes, resting his cold hands on his chest and forcing himself to relax.

What a far cry this makeshift box was from his old coffin back in Dunwall Tower.

His casket had been a thing of absolute beauty. Jessamine had insisted upon the very best despite Corvo’s repeated assertions that the expense was unnecessary and that a more utilitarian coffin – or even a bed in a small dark closet – would have served him just fine. And, to his mild embarrassment, Corvo found that he had grown used to the luxury, had even perhaps taken a small measure of pride in the gift despite having no other vampire acquaintances to lord the thing over. 

His casket had been crafted of the finest dark mahogany from Wynnedown. The sides had been engraved with organic swirls and spirals that looked like the wind through nighttime mist, the lid emblazoned with the golden swan heraldry of the Kaldwins and the badges of his office as Royal Protector. Sized to his specific height and measure, the coffin sat upon a raised dais in the middle of his small bedchamber, austere and regal in presentation, but somehow luxuriant as well. Inside, it was lined with a thick mattress covered in dark blue Bastillian silk and a matching pillow; the lid above him had been covered with similarly colored brocade from Tamarak, and Corvo had spent countless hours over the years staring up at the swirling embroidery as he drifted off to sleep.

He shifted uncomfortably in the pine box and wondered where his old coffin was now. Perhaps Burrows had burned it in one of his panicked, xenophobic fits. That sounded like him. Corvo just hoped it hadn’t been dumped in the Flooded District with the weeper corpses or sold at auction to some other vampire-keeping noble. He couldn’t stand the thought of another slumbering away in what had become a nearly sacred space, full of warm and secret memories.

Hours passed, and though no sunlight slipped into the box, Corvo could feel the weighty presence of the sun slowly crossing the hazy sky. He dozed on and off, simply laying still in various states of awareness and trying to regain his strength for the next night, uncertain what sort of mission Havelock and the rest would have for him when he got up. Eventually, Corvo found himself awake enough to realize that he had for a while been sleeping relatively deeply, but that something had just roused him.

The creak of floorboards caused him to grow alert and still. Tensing, he closed his eyes in the pitch black box and opened them to the nebulous, infrared sight of his vampiric Dark Vision. 

There, outside his coffin, creeping in from the direction of the doorway, was a figure whose small, thin form Corvo knew quite well indeed. He relaxed, a small smile slipping onto his face, revealing the very tip of one sharp fang. He watched as she snuck closer, her every movement cautious and deliberate, her soft tread nearly as light as his own. Had the Hound Pits’ floorboards not been in such awful shape, he wondered if he would have heard her stealthy approach at all. 

It hurt a bit, deep in his cold sluggish heart, the gradual comprehension of just how much she had grown and matured in the last nine or ten months, and so much of it without his or Jessamine’s guidance. The Nightsider only knew her rapid development in all aspects was necessary in these dark times, but still…

When the small form began to kneel down beside his coffin, Corvo quickly blinked aside his Dark Vision and closed his eyes, relaxing his face and feigning sleep. A moment later, a light tap sounded near his ear, small knuckles just brushing against the worn wood, and then a hesitant voice whispered, “Corvo…?” Before he could answer, the hinges squeaked and a strip of hazy ambient light spilled into the box. Corvo stirred and squinted blearily up at Emily’s pale, round face as she gazed worriedly back down at him. “I’m sorry, Corvo, are… are you awake?”

“…Whatis it? What’sa matter?” he slurred back, his thick Serkonan accent muddling up the words between his sharp canines.

The coffin lid lifted further; from the patterning of light on the far wall, Corvo guessed it was late afternoon. “Nothing really,” Emily replied, her dark eyes darting away from his. “I just… I just wanted to check in on you. See if you were alright up here, all alone.” Her posture was heavy with guilt, and Corvo could scent the faint aroma of nervousness and misbehavior on her.

“I’m fine. Just resting.” Corvo fixed his eyes intently on her until she returned the gaze. “But what about you? Aren’t you supposed to be with Callista right now?”

Emily ducked her head. “Well… Sort of… I mean, I was until a few minutes ago. But I’ve been working on history and geography all day, and all the names and dates are muddled together in my head now, and I just needed a break!”

Corvo couldn’t help but smile at the obvious pleading in her wide eyes and the beseeching way she nibbled at her bottom lip. The gesture was just so Jessamine, though the empress’s canine teeth had not held the potential for breaking skin the way Emily’s did with their little petite points: not fangs precisely, but not perfectly human either. As long as Emily didn’t draw attention to them the way she was now, though, it was easily overlooked, particularly with the girl’s very normal appetite for fried eels, tartlets, and cake.

“Is that so…?” Corvo asked quietly, pretending to consider her implied request. “Did you work very hard at your studies while you were at them?”

“Oh, yes!” Emily assured him quickly. “Very hard all day! Promise! That’s why I’m so tired now, see?”

Her eager expression made her look anything but tired, but Corvo chuckled anyway, easily resigned. With a bit of effort, he raised one sleep-numbed arm up to lift the coffin’s lid further, taking the weight off of Emily’s hand. “Alright, c’mon, then,” he murmured, gesturing with his head still sunk into a dusty cushion, his long hair tangled around his face. “Just for a bit.”

Emily grinned widely, a tiny noise of excitement escaping her throat, and clambered over the pine box’s rim on her hands and knees and onto his lap. Corvo grunted as she accidentally pressed too hard on the soft flesh of his stomach, holding himself still as she scrambled to find an open spot for all of her long, thin limbs. The coffin was not built for two – it was barely even big enough for Corvo – but he knew Emily didn’t care about such logistics. He held in a wince as she rolled over onto a rather sensitive area, oblivious as she struggled to kick off her buckled shoes, letting them fall carelessly to the floor. 

Allowing the child-empress to the Isles inside that tiny bed-space with a supposedly rogue vampire – and himself in only his thin undergarments – was among the worst acts of impropriety Corvo could possibly imagine. He could almost see Jessamine laughing at the many and diverse ironies of the situation; he could also envision, however, the utter horror and alarm it would inspire in Emily’s other current caretakers. Corvo shifted a bit to one side as Emily struggled to align her white silk-clad body next to his, one small hand grasping his broad shoulder in an attempt to scoot her head up closer to his. 

“Does Callista know you’re up here?” he asked carefully.

“Er…” Emily hedged, nudging his free arm with her forehead until he wrapped it loosely around her shoulders. “…Maybe not exactly? I… kinda told her I wanted to play hide-and-seek.”

“Emily…”

“Well, she’s not very good at hide-and-seek,” she explained quickly, slinging an arm across his chest. She propped her chin up to get a better look as his face. “And I heard her promise Lydia and Cecelia earlier that she’d help with the food tonight, soooo she’ll probably give up soon and wait until dinner’s ready before she tries to find me again.”

Corvo ruffled Emily’s short hair in mock chastisement and was rewarded with a mischievous giggle. As her movements slowed and she settled down against him – half on top and half to the side, hugging him with one arm and with one leg draped over his own, her head pillowed against his shoulder – Corvo allowed the lid of the coffin to gently close above them.

Emily seemed to welcome the heavy dark. She twisted her fingers in the fabric of his undershirt with a contented sigh, snuggling closer as Corvo enfolded her reverently in his arms. She didn’t appear to mind the unpleasant smells of the bedding or the icy death-like chill of his bare flesh. Jessamine had always been a living furnace, a beautiful blazing flame trapped beneath soft skin, branding him like a hot iron wherever their bodies touched; Emily, however, was like a warm blanket fresh from the clothesline, heated by the sun but generating no heat of her own. The contrast was a soothing comfort and Corvo allowed himself to relax in the girl’s embrace, absentmindedly smoothing her feathered hair.

“You’ll have to leave before Callista finds you in here,” he whispered, feeling the edges of sleep creeping up on him once more and weighing down his eyelids.

“I know,” she whispered back. Their muffled voices echoed in the dark, confined space. “I won’t stay for too long. But you said I could come here whenever I wanted.”

“You can. Anytime.”

In the quiet stillness, Corvo grew aware of the steady beating of Emily’s heart. It pounded a calm tattoo in her chest; he could feel the minute vibrations within his own, could hear the bright blood coursing through her every vein. The sound stirred no hunger inside him, though. It kindled only a fierce, almost feral desire to hold this small not-quite-human girl close, to guard her, to defend and protect her with every fiber of his damned being.

Corvo stroked her hair and hugged her tightly. Never again would he let them be parted. And despite his own reservations about his patron god, he thanked the Nightsider for the abilities that would help him to ensure such a future.

“’Love you, Corvo,” Emily murmured into his shoulder, voice fading away into sleep. Warmed by the unexpected words, Corvo gently kissed the top of her head, careful not to catch his fangs in her hair.

“’Love you, too, Emily,” he murmured back and settled back down to sleep until the sun set over Dunwall once more.


End file.
